Published: Thursday, 12th February, 2009 7:00am

Tributes to a pioneering business professor

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READING University has paid tribute to "generous and open-minded" Professor John Dunning who was given an OBE last summer.

Professor Dunning was emeritus professor of international business at the university after becoming the first head of the economics department after its creation in 1964.

He died on January 29 at the Dunedin Hospital in Bath Road, Reading, aged 81.

Prof Dunning founded and was the leading light of the 'Reading School' of thought in the world of international business and investment, and was also a consultant to the United Nations, the World Bank and many other governmental organisations.

The university named the John H. Dunning Centre for International Business after him at the Henley Business School.

Professor Robert Pearce, longstanding colleague and friend said: "My first thought is that I knew John for 45 years and through all that time I never stopped learning from him.

"Not, of course, that John would ever dream of lecturing those of us who knew him and worked with him in a proscriptive or censorious way, he was much too generous and open-minded for that, but we did have the wonderful opportunity to learn valuable and important things from his example.

"From his example we learned the real purpose of scholarship, the meaning of good scholarship and how to produce high-quality research and investigation.

"We also learned how to operate in the academic profession, how to support and motivate colleagues and, when criticism was necessary, how to provide it in kind and constructive ways.

"Most important of all we learned from his example how to function as human beings, with uncompromising decency and dignity.

"I will miss John terribly but I will continue to learn from him because I will take his example with me always."

Professor Dunning's funeral takes place at 1.30pm tomorrow (Friday) at the Henley Road Cemetery and Reading Crematorium, All Hallows Road, Caversham.

Family flowers only but donations may be sent to Action Medical Research (Tiny Lives Campaign) c/o Tomalin and Son Funeral Directors, Anderson House, 38 Reading Road, Henley, Oxon RG9 1AG, or donated at the chapel.

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